SELF ANALYSIS & WRITING: Which Me Am I Now?

Posted on June 13, 2004 by Susan

Psychology and Philosophy are twins, I think. Both force the questions, “What is the mind? What is real, and what is not?”

Freud probed the mind to propose (loosely translated) that many lived inside one single mind, and colored how we saw the world depending upon which one of us was watching at the time. He felt that dreams revealed our viewpoint of reality, and people, trees, and countries were turned to symbols in our dreams, thinly hiding what we faced, or often couldn’t face each day.

I feel that in the creative process, we do the same, with colored words and images. Instead of interpreting dreams to reveal reality, we build a world of words to hide within, but consciously awake, alert and plotting. Often it becomes the more natural way of seeing things, even at first glance.

Everything I’ve written here in the past months has been honest. It is no longer, however, straightforward. We learn to paint an image in Renaissance extremes or sometimes in cubist, modernist, or secretly obvious forms; sometimes, obviously secret as well.

Posted in Self Analysis, WRITING | 3 Comments

REALITY?: Life Sports

Posted on June 13, 2004 by Susan

I have rediscovered mountain climbing and it is quite fun.

On Thursday I climbed the Food Pyramid and since I was missing my spiked shoes, slid off and grounded myself. I also climbed the sheer face of Reality Mountain when we visited friends whose family gathered around one, maybe last time.

On Friday I climbed Laid Off Peaks. This is one I have been up and down many times before, and if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger and more determined. I think.

On Saturday I climbed the Mountain of Paperwork. This one’s easy, but just no fun at all, and in the putting off, it seems higher every time.

Today I shall climb the Artistic Hills of Burlington, planting and cleaning the horizon as I go.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring in challenge and scope. Will it be surmountable? Will I be up to the climbing and the claiming of its height? I must watch out for bluffs and precipices that can detour and damage. I must practice, I would think, and be prepared to scale even the volcano.

Posted in REALITY | 1 Comment

CURRENT AFFAIRS: Policy on Politics

Posted on June 12, 2004 by Susan

From Graham Lester at Point 2 Point, one of the best summaries of politics I’ve heard lately:

I find politics, at least as it is practiced over here in America, to be largely a competition between two religions that leaves little place for any sort of genuine grappling with issues. The politically minded on both sides seem to have a need to divide the world into a good group and a bad group like old-fashioned cowboys and indians.

Although I have also taken an oath to consider politics a dirty word here at Spinning, I must agree in large with Graham’s assessment. It seems that most people affiliated with a political party will blindly vote and spout the party rhetoric without giving either themselves as individuals or the other platforms any credit for sometimes having the better or smarter ideas.

Posted in CURRENT AFFAIRS | 1 Comment

REALITY?: Marriage

Posted on June 12, 2004 by Susan

Am I really expected to honor my marriage vows with a man who won’t allow garbonzo beans in his salad?

There must be a limit, no?

Posted in REALITY | 1 Comment

PEOPLE: Music

Posted on June 12, 2004 by Susan

For my friend Neha, and with thanks to J-Walk for the link, here’s a great site for creating and listening to some Indian music, called Shankar Drum Ganesh Machine.

Wonder if they could do something with an accordian and some “Woohs”?

Posted in People | 1 Comment

REALITY?: Say…

Posted on June 12, 2004 by Susan

I suppose that just as with “nice,” if you have nothing “good” to say, it’s best to say nothing at all.

Posted in REALITY | Comments Off on REALITY?: Say…

REALITY?: People

Posted on June 11, 2004 by Susan

Today is my eldest sister’s sixty-fifth birthday, and I can only call down south to wish her well. Ten years ago they fled New England cold and taxes, large yards to mow and keeping up with neighbors. Floridians prefer a level playing field, and cluster in their homes in groups of age and retirement income that determines outdoor gardenia trees and limes.

I wish that I could touch her now, as I once reached out to her when I was eight. She was seventeen and like an angel, dressed in mom-designed and sewn pink satin gown. She married the man who took her to the prom that night, and he was handsome, tall and skinny, though he’s handsome yet. And she, despite the distance of the heavens and the land, is proud and strong and caring, like an angel still.

Happy birthday, E.

Posted in People | 1 Comment

REALITY?: Garden Plots

Posted on June 11, 2004 by Susan

Cultivate a happiness that comes from knowing others. Walk the garden paths seeking all varieties and save the seeds to plant those that are perennial and hardy stock. Take joy in vibrant blooms and save the memory. Stroke the softness of the new green leaves. Have patience with the winter’s withered times. Pull the weeds that choke new growth, and don’t feel anger or remorse; weeds propagate with help from those averse to beauty and will survive. Encourage all late bloomers, salute the heavy oak, and always, when you can do it, stop and watch for bonus butterflies.

Posted in REALITY | 1 Comment

REALITY?: Journeys

Posted on June 11, 2004 by Susan

I envy you your journey, but not your trip, I say. Because there is only so far that I can go along for now. Our paths are ultimately the same, but I am traveling slower, and can only watch and learn until I can’t keep up and drop her hand.

Our bubbles float in place and time and sometimes meet in clusters, change in shape and form and even in direction from the very fact they are together. One change by choice and all are changed forever. One pops and the others move along, some separate to catch a current and blow away.

The backpack of the mind grows heavy with the climbing and the rocks picked up as souvenirs become a burden. Decisions must be made on what is real and what is not, and what is needed to go on. Picking prose and playmates from the wealth of memories, and keeping what will last to shed the rest in trails behind us, markers yes, but offering no guide. Whittling down to what is near and dear alone. The elderly all do it with their basements and their knick-knacks. But then, they often have the time to sort it out.

The living learn by living and by dying. I keep my eyes wide open while I can.

Posted in REALITY | 4 Comments

Stories: Friends

Posted on June 10, 2004 by Susan

She chattered the half hour up there in the car. She wasn’t one who chattered, but one whose only time for small talk was with her father-in-law one meal a week. He was a man of no words at all except for World War II and army life. No words about his long-dead wife, her husband’s mother. A word perhaps about great gas mileage for a week or two after each new car, but that was all.

Her husband’s curtness brought her to attention. They both were teetering atop a wall, afraid to reach out for help. Each knew his own as well as the other’s thoughts because they were alike and focused. She stopped trying to find anything to say.

They stopped the car once and he got out and went inside a store. She waited patiently for fifteen minutes, then impatiently for five more. A quick smile as he emerged to cover her annoyance, but he stood waiting at the door as a friend drove up, got out and greeted him. She knew this friend, and just before she’d married, he’d known her. Her husband knew this too. Awkwardly she unleashed herself from seatbelts and emerged to say hello, trying to forget the past association, trying to forget the words she had just heard them exchange. “A month.” “Less than that, I think,” they’d said. Then pleasantly, they parted.

They went inside and she hugged the woman of the house. Her husband did the same and held on longer. “Not too hard,” she warned and worried, but she knew his gentle side and saw it shining wetly in his eyes just then again.

A good afternoon and hopefully the evening. The man came home from work and seemed pleased to see his friends. They sat and soon were laughing. Laughing hard, as if everything would always be this good.

Posted in STORIES | Comments Off on Stories: Friends

WRITING: Earth

Posted on June 10, 2004 by Susan

The earth is like my body, but known and used far more and longer leaving wounds that heal with time and patience, just as I.

Frozen cold and hard in winter months; fed by thawing rain to soften hills and valleys into fertile land. Fingertips in foreplay lift the soil to new dimensions, but the hoe digs deeper for the planting of the seeds that nestle in the warm womb at the core.

Secrets burrow, bury themselves within the universe of living things. Tickled back to the surface by the fire that burns through layers, yet never burns itself out and burns forever as a light, a spirit, a separate entity. And as the earth, I shall survive and wait through season after season for every spring.

Posted in WRITING | 1 Comment

SELF ANALYSIS: Being

Posted on June 10, 2004 by Susan

A spark of life, a flash of light from flint and metal. Patience, work, determination. Patience, waiting for the straw to catch. Work, over and over and over again in repetitious moves based on experience and knowledge. Determination, because there is a goal. The fire is not for merely light to see but warmth to breathe as well. Necessary, to stop and try and try and try before you can go on. A glimpse of cold, unmoving in its place moves the seer.

I think it’s caught. I need a breeze to fan the little flame.

Posted in Self Analysis | 2 Comments

PEOPLE: Good, Bad, and Ugly

Posted on June 10, 2004 by Susan

This article by Adam Liptak in today’s New York Times sickens me.

“Should Doctors Help With Executions? No Easy Ethical Answer”

“ATLANTA, June 7 – Dr. Sanjeeva Rao used to look after the inmates at the state prison in Jackson, Ga., treating their high blood pressure and more serious ailments. When the state started using lethal injections in 2000, he took on another task: helping to execute them.”

I cannot abide the concept of capital punishment in that it grants to the State the very right which it is denying the individual, and rightly so.

The ethical and personal morals of a physician put into this position are challenged when he is being asked to assist in an execution. But capital punishment is legal in some states. He therefore is doing nothing illegal. And would I want him there if I were facing execution? Yes.

I cannot justify “eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” I cannot believe that this is right, despite the Code of Hammurabi or the Bible (Matthew 5:38).

This makes me sad.

Posted in People | 2 Comments

WRITING, SELF-ANALYSIS: Stop

Posted on June 10, 2004 by Susan

“There’s something happening here,
What it is ain’t exactly clear…”

“Stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down…”

(For What It’s Worth, Lyrics; Buffalo Springfield)

I feel it, the breaking down of the last stronghold. Writing is in danger of being shadowed by the same cloud that’s been blocking the light from the rest of my reality. It’s a feeling of I can’t think, do I have to, slowly winding down to I don’t want to, I don’t care.

Everything is so overwhelming that it just doesn’t seem possible anymore. But there are gotta-do’s, and that’s what is saving me right now. The gotta do’s are gaining rank in priority, and they’re finally getting done by sheer force of willpower and learned sense of commitment and responsibility.

In the past couple of days I faced the great outdoors. I dressed in cutoffs and oldest tee-shirt to get into gardening mood. The woman staring rather confusedly back at me in my mirror looked like a gardener. She stood there for a moment, wordless, turned her back on me and left me standing there. She went outside, I think, and gardened.

Losing the will to write is the point at which I draw the line at sinking further down. The words have kept me afloat amidst unvacuumed rugs and growing impatient customers.

Maybe this will be my Last Stand, but I am no gallant, unthinking Custer. I have always been an Indian. So I shall write. Forgive me, but I must go on the warpath now.

Posted in Self Analysis, WRITING | 2 Comments

LITERATURE: Contemporary Fiction, Part 2

Posted on June 9, 2004 by Susan

The Summer issue (#51) of Glimmer Train arrived the other day, and while walking from the mailbox to the house I unwrapped it from its plastic sleeve and scanned the back cover where the included stories and authors are listed. Happily surprised, I recognized a name from one of my linked weblogs and sat right down with a cup of cold coffee and the book out on the back porch.

The story is titled, “The Hero of Queens Boulevard,” and it is written by Michelle Richmond who is an author of two books and many other published short stories, a reviewer, and keeper of several websites including Michelle’s Daily Dose, Fiction Attic, as well as several others for her books and manuscript consultation services.

I loved the story and here’s why:

It is simple, straightforward yet skillfully blended with imagery that seems to tell an almost lighthearted tale while quite gently uncovering multiple physical and emotional conflicts that are tied in with the events to result in a life-changing frame of mind for the protagonist. Isn’t that what good narrative is supposed to be?

Continue reading →

Posted in LITERATURE | Comments Off on LITERATURE: Contemporary Fiction, Part 2